Mrs. Fisher too was gracious. This was this young man’s house. He was a man of property. She liked property, and she liked men of property. Also there seemed a peculiar merit in being a man of property so young. Inheritance, of course; and inheritance was more respectable than acquisition. It did indicate fathers; and in an age where most people appeared neither to have them nor to want them she liked this too.
Accordingly it was a pleasant meal, with everybody amiable and pleased. Briggs thought Mrs. Fisher a dear old lady, and showed he thought so; and again the magic worked, and she became a dear old lady. She developed benignity with him, and a kind of benignity which was almost playful — actually before tea was over including in some observation she made him the words “My dear boy.”
Strange words in Mrs. Fisher’s mouth. It is doubtful whether in her life she had used them before. Rose was astonished. Now nice people really were. When would she leave off making mistakes about them? She hadn’t suspected this side of Mrs. Fisher, and she began to wonder whether those other sides of her with which alone she was acquainted had not perhaps after all been the effect of her own militant and irritating behaviour. Probably they were. How horrid, then, she must have been. She felt very penitent when she saw Mrs. Fisher beneath her eyes blossoming out into real amiability the moment some one came along who was charming to her, and she could have sunk into the ground with shame when Mrs. Fisher presently laughed, and she realized by the shock it gave her that the sound was entirely new. Not once before had she or any one else there heard Mrs. Fisher laugh. What an indictment of the lot of them! For they had all laughed, the others, some more and some less, at one time or another since their arrival, and only Mrs. Fisher had not. Clearly, since she could enjoy herself as she was now enjoying herself, she had not enjoyed herself before. Nobody had cared whether she did or not, except perhaps Lotty. Yes; Lotty had cared, and had wanted her to be happy; but Lotty seemed to produce a bad effect on Mrs. Fisher, while as for Rose herself she had never been with her for five minutes without wanting, really wanting, to provoke and oppose her.
How very horrid she had been. She had behaved unpardonably. Her penitence showed itself in a shy and deferential solicitude towards Mrs. Fisher which made the observant Briggs think her still more angelic, and wish for a moment that he were an old lady himself in order to be behaved to by Rose Arbuthnot just like that. There was evidently no end, he thought, to the things she could do sweetly. He would even not mind taking medicine, really nasty medicine, if it were Rose Arbuthnot bending over him with the dose.
She felt his bright blue eyes, the brighter because he was so sunburnt, fixed on her with a twinkle in them, and smiling asked him what he was thinking about.
But he couldn’t very well tell her that, he said; and added, “Some day.”
“Trouble, trouble,” thought Mr. Wilkins at this, again mentally rubbing his hands. “Well, I’m their man.”
“I’m sure,” said Mrs. Fisher benignly, “you have no thoughts we may not hear.”
“I’m sure,” said Briggs, “I would be telling you every one of my secrets in a week.”
“You would be telling somebody very safe, then,” said Mrs. Fisher benevolently — just such a son would she have liked to have had. “And in return,” she went on, “I daresay I would tell you mine.”
“Ah no,” said Mr. Wilkins, adapting himself to this tone of easy badinage, “I must protest. I really must. I have a prior claim, I am the older friend. I have known Mrs. Fisher ten days, and you, Briggs, have not yet known her one. I assert my right to be told her secrets first. That is,” he added, bowing gallantly, “if she has any — which I beg leave to doubt.”
“Oh, haven’t I!” exclaimed Mrs. Fisher, thinking of those green leaves. That she should exclaim at all was surprising, but that she should do it with gaiety was miraculous. Rose could only watch her in wonder.
“Then I shall worm them out,” said Briggs with equal gaiety.
“They won’t need much worming out,” said Mrs. Fisher. “My difficulty is to keep them from bursting out.”
It might have been Lotty talking. Mr. Wilkins adjusted the single eyeglass he carried with him for occasions like this, and examined Mrs. Fisher carefully. Rose looked on, unable not to smile too since Mrs. Fisher seemed so much amused, though Rose did not quite know why, and her smile was a little uncertain, for Mrs. Fisher amused was a new sight, not without its awe-inspiring aspects, and had to be got accustomed to.
What Mrs. Fisher was thinking was how much surprised they would be if she told them of her very odd and exciting sensation of going to come out all over buds. They would think she was an extremely silly old woman, and so would she have thought as lately as two days ago; but the bud idea was becoming familiar to her, she was more apprivoisée now, as dear Matthew Arnold used to say, and though it would undoubtedly be best if one’s appearance and sensations matched, yet supposing they did not — and one couldn’t have everything — was it not better to feel young somewhere rather than old everywhere? Time enough to be old everywhere again, inside as well as out, when she got back to her sarcophagus in Prince of Wales Terrace.
Yet it is probable that without the arrival of Briggs Mrs. Fisher would have gone on secretly fermenting in her shell. The others only knew her as severe. It would have been more than her dignity could bear suddenly to relax — especially towards the three young women. But now came the stranger Briggs, a stranger who at once took to her as no young man had taken to her in her life, and it was the coming of Briggs and his real and manifest appreciation — for just such a grandmother, thought Briggs, hungry for home life and its concomitants, would he have liked to have — that released Mrs. Fisher from her shell; and here she was at last, as Lotty had predicted, pleased, good-humoured and benevolent.
Lotty, coming back half an hour later from her picnic, and following the sound of voices into the top garden in the hope of still finding tea, saw at once what had happened, for Mrs. Fisher at that very moment was laughing.
“She’s burst her cocoon,” thought Lotty; and swift as she was in all her movements, and impulsive, and also without any sense of propriety to worry and delay her, she bent over the back of Mrs. Fisher’s chair and kissed her.
“Good gracious!” cried Mrs. Fisher, starting violently, for such a thing had not happened to her since Mr. Fisher’s earlier days, and then only gingerly. This kiss was a real kiss, and rested on Mrs. Fisher’s cheek a moment with a strange, soft sweetness.
When she saw whose it was, a deep flush spread over her face. Mrs. Wilkins kissing her and the kiss feeling so affectionate. . . Even if she had wanted to she could not in the presence of the appreciative Mr. Briggs resume her cast-off severity and begin rebuking again; but she did not want to. Was it possible Mrs. Wilkins liked her — had liked her all this time, while she had been so much disliking her herself? A queer little trickle of warmth filtered through the frozen defences of Mrs. Fisher’s heart. Somebody young kissing her — somebody young wanting to kiss her. . . Very much flushed, she watched the strange creature, apparently quite unconscious she had done anything extraordinary, shaking hands with Mr. Briggs, on her husband’s introducing him, and immediately embarking on the friendliest conversation with him, exactly as if she had known him all her life. What a strange creature; what a very strange creature. It was natural, she being so strange, that one should have, perhaps, misjudged her. . .
“I’m sure you want some tea,” said Briggs with eager hospitality to Lotty. He thought her delightful, — freckles, picnic-untidiness and all. Just such a sister would he —
“This is cold,” he said, feeling the teapot. “I’ll tell Francesca to make you some fresh—”
He broke off and blushed. “Aren’t I forgetting myself,” he said, laughing and looking round at them.
“Very natural, very natural,” Mr. Wilkins reassured him.
“I’ll go and tell Francesca,” said Rose, getting up.
“No, no,” said Briggs. “Don
’t go away.” And he put his hands to his mouth and shouted.
“Francesca!” shouted Briggs.
She came running. No summons in their experience had been answered by her with such celerity.
“‘Her Master’s voice,’” remarked Mr. Wilkins; aptly, he considered.
“Make fresh tea,” ordered Briggs in Italian. “Quick — quick—” And then remembering himself he blushed again, and begged everybody’s pardon.
“Very natural, very natural,” Mr. Wilkins reassured him.
Briggs then explained to Lotty what he had explained twice already, once to Rose and once to the other two, that he was on his way to Rome and thought he would get out at Mezzago and just look in to see if they were comfortable and continue his journey the next day, staying the night in an hotel at Mezzago.
“But how ridiculous,” said Lotty. “Of course you must stay here. It’s your house. There’s Kate Lumley’s room,” she added, turning to Mrs. Fisher. “You wouldn’t mind Mr. Briggs having it for one night? Kate Lumley isn’t in it, you know,” she said turning to Briggs again and laughing.
And Mrs. Fisher to her immense surprise laughed too. She knew that any other time this remark would have struck her as excessively unseemly, and yet now she only thought it funny.
No indeed, she assured Briggs, Kate Lumley was not in that room. Very fortunately, for she was an excessively wide person and the room was excessively narrow. Kate Lumley might get into it, but that was about all. Once in, she would fit it so tightly that probably she would never be able to get out again. It was entirely at Mr. Briggs’s disposal, and she hoped he would do nothing so absurd as go to an hotel — he, the owner of the whole place.
Rose listened to this speech wide-eyed with amazement. Mrs. Fisher laughed very much as she made it. Lotty laughed very much too, and at the end of it bent down and kissed her again — kissed her several times.
“So you see, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Fisher, “you must stay here and give us all a great deal of pleasure.”
“A great deal indeed,” corroborated Mr. Wilkins heartily.
“A very great deal,” repeated Mrs. Fisher, looking exactly like a pleased mother.
“Do,” said Rose, on Briggs’s turning inquiringly to her.
“How kind of you all,” he said, his face broad with smiles. “I’d love to be a guest here. What a new sensation. And with three such—”
He broke off and looked round. “I say,” he asked, “oughtn’t I to have a fourth hostess? Francesca said she had four mistresses.”
“Yes. There’s Lady Caroline,” said Lotty.
“Then hadn’t we better find out first if she invites me too?”
“Oh, but she’s sure—” began Lotty.
“The daughter of the Droitwiches, Briggs,” said Mr. Wilkins, “is not likely to be wanting in the proper hospitable impulses.”
“The daughter of the—” repeated Briggs; but he stopped dead, for there in the doorway was the daughter of the Droitwiches herself; or rather, coming towards him out of the dark doorway into the brightness of the sunset, was that which he had not in his life yet seen but only dreamed of, his ideal of absolute loveliness.
Chapter 19
And then when she spoke . . . what chance was there for poor Briggs? He was undone. All Scrap said was, “How do you do,” on Mr. Wilkins presenting him, but it was enough; it undid Briggs.
From a cheerful, chatty, happy young man, overflowing with life and friendliness, he became silent, solemn, and with little beads on his temples. Also he became clumsy, dropping the teaspoon as he handed her her cup, mismanaging the macaroons, so that one rolled on the ground. His eyes could not keep off the enchanting face for a moment; and when Mr. Wilkins, elucidating him, for he failed to elucidate himself, informed Lady Caroline that in Mr. Briggs she beheld the owner of San Salvatore, who was on his way to Rome, but had got out at Mezzago, etc. etc., and that the other three ladies had invited him to spend the night in what was to all intents and purposes his own house rather than an hotel, and Mr. Briggs was only waiting for the seal of her approval to this invitation, she being the fourth hostess — when Mr. Wilkins, balancing his sentences and being admirably clear and enjoying the sound of his own cultured voice, explained the position in this manner to Lady Caroline, Briggs sat and said never a word.
A deep melancholy invaded Scrap. The symptoms of the incipient grabber were all there and only too familiar, and she knew that if Briggs stayed her rest-cure might be regarded as over.
Then Kate Lumley occurred to her. She caught at Kate as at a straw.
“It would have been delightful,” she said, faintly smiling at Briggs — she could not in decency not smile, at least a little, but even a little betrayed the dimple, and Briggs’s eyes became more fixed than ever— “I’m only wondering if there is room.”
“Yes, there is,” said Lotty. “There’s Kate Lumley’s room.”
“I thought,” said Scrap to Mrs. Fisher, and it seemed to Briggs that he had never heard music till now, “your friend was expected immediately.”
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Fisher — with an odd placidness, Scrap thought.
“Miss Lumley,” said Mr. Wilkins, “ — or should I,” he inquired of Mrs. Fisher, “say Mrs.?”
“Nobody has ever married Kate,” said Mrs. Fisher complacently.
“Quite so. Miss Lumley does not arrive to-day in any case, Lady Caroline, and Mr. Briggs has — unfortunately, if I may say so — to continue his journey to-morrow, so that his staying would in no way interfere with Miss Lumley’s possible movements.”
“Then of course I join in the invitation,” said Scrap, with what was to Briggs the most divine cordiality.
He stammered something, flushing scarlet, and Scrap thought, “Oh,” and turned her head away; but that merely made Briggs acquainted with her profile, and if there existed anything more lovely than Scrap’s full face it was her profile.
Well, it was only for this one afternoon and evening. He would leave, no doubt, the first thing in the morning. It took hours to get to Rome. Awful if he hung on till the night train. She had a feeling that the principal express to Rome passed through at night. Why hadn’t that woman Kate Lumley arrived yet? She had forgotten all about her, but now she remembered she was to have been invited a fortnight ago. What had become of her? This man, once let in, would come and see her in London, would haunt the places she was likely to go to. He had the makings, her experienced eye could see, of a passionately persistent grabber.
“If,” thought Mr. Wilkins, observing Briggs’s face and sudden silence, “any understanding existed between this young fellow and Mrs. Arbuthnot, there is now going to be trouble. Trouble of a different nature from the kind I feared, in which Arbuthnot would have played a leading part, in fact the part of petitioner, but trouble that may need help and advice none the less for its not being publicly scandalous. Briggs, impelled by his passions and her beauty, will aspire to the daughter of the Droitwiches. She, naturally and properly, will repel him. Mrs. Arbuthnot, left in the cold, will be upset and show it. Arbuthnot, on his arrival will find his wife in enigmatic tears. Inquiring into their cause, he will be met with an icy reserve. More trouble may then be expected, and in me they will seek and find their adviser. When Lotty said Mrs. Arbuthnot wanted her husband, she was wrong. What Mrs. Arbuthnot wants is Briggs, and it looks uncommonly as if she were not going to get him. Well, I’m their man.”
“Where are your things, Mr. Briggs?” asked Mrs. Fisher, her voice round with motherliness. “Oughtn’t they to be fetched?” For the sun was nearly in the sea now, and the sweet-smelling April dampness that followed immediately on its disappearance was beginning to steal into the garden.
Briggs started. “My things?” he repeated. “Oh yes — I must fetch them. They’re in Mezzago. I’ll send Domenico. My fly is waiting in the village. He can go back in it. I’ll go and tell him.”
He got up. To whom was he talking? To Mrs. Fisher, ostensibly, yet his eyes
were fixed on Scrap, who said nothing and looked at no one.
Then, recollecting himself, he stammered, “I’m awfully sorry — I keep on forgetting — I’ll go down and fetch them myself.”
“We can easily send Domenico,” said Rose; and at her gentle voice he turned his head.
Why, there was his friend, the sweet-named lady — but how had she not in this short interval changed! Was it the failing light making her so colourless, so vague-featured, so dim, so much like a ghost? A nice good ghost, of course, and still with a pretty name, but only a ghost.
He turned from her to Scrap again, and forgot Rose Arbuthnot’s existence. How was it possible for him to bother about anybody or anything else in this first moment of being face to face with his dream come true?
Briggs had not supposed or hoped that any one as beautiful as his dream of beauty existed. He had never till now met even an approximation. Pretty women, charming women by the score he had met and properly appreciated, but never the real, the godlike thing itself. He used to think “If ever I saw a perfectly beautiful woman I should die”; and though, having now met what to his ideas was a perfectly beautiful woman, he did not die, he became very nearly as incapable of managing his own affairs as if he had.
The others were obliged to arrange everything for him. By questions they extracted from him that his luggage was in the station cloakroom at Mezzago, and they sent for Domenico, and, urged and prompted by everybody except Scrap, who sat in silence and looked at no one, Briggs was induced to give him the necessary instructions for going back in the fly and bringing out his things.
It was a sad sight to see the collapse of Briggs. Everybody noticed it, even Rose.
“Upon my word,” thought Mrs. Fisher, “the way one pretty face can turn a delightful man into an idiot is past all patience.”
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 286
